Gardening jobs, October Long Weekend 2021

It’s the October long weekend here, which is one of my favourite mini-breaks. I love it because it’s Springtime in Southern Australia, a few months before Christmas, and we have a bit of time to get some things done around the garden.

It’s always great being in the garden at this time of year, because there are flowers everywhere. All the spring flowering bulbs are out, as well as my favourites, the sweet peas. This year I have three varieties in flower. They always make me feel happy.

This time I am not spending the whole weekend in the garden as I have a deadline, but I decided to take two full days off for the first time in…bloody ages actually.

I booked a big skip bin and my husband and I made plans to clear out our sheds of extraneous junk. A lot of the junk was left over from the guy that lived here before us (yes, still!), and from building our retaining wall and renovating our bathroom. Some of it is just from the accumulation of life.

We filled up a 4m cube bin really quickly. I would not say we are collectors, but it was kind of depressing how quickly we filled a pretty large bin.

The other job left over from building the retaining wall was moving the clean fill back to the garden. This has taken me many months, partly because it is a boring job, partly because there is a lot to move, and partly because it’s really hard. There’s only so much shovelling dirt into buckets and moving it around the garden I can do in one hit before this old lady collapses in a corner. However, this weekend I managed to clear a whole section. I am really happy about that. You can actually see the pathway next to the shed now. Only one section to go (the biggest, of course), then all I have to do is power wash the whole thing and it will look great. Or at least, not filthy.

Pumpkin Mounds

Some of the buckets of dirt went to build pumpkin mounds. Curcubits (pumpkins, zucchini, squash etc) are prone to powdery mildew, which is exacerbated by getting their leaves wet. A way to help prevent this is by planting them on little hills or mounds, then watering the base of the plant. I used the spare buckets of dirt (which was originally from my garden), to build hills. Then I mixed in a bit of compost, and planted pumpkin seeds in the top. I planted four types of pumpkins: Australian Butter, Queensland Blue, ye olde Butternut, and Buttercup. Hoping for a great pumpkin crop this year after last year’s sad effort.

I cleaned out the chicken coop, and let the chooks go for a wander while I did that. After I replaced their straw I went looking for them, calling out their “chookchookchook!” call that lets them know it’s time to come inside. One of them trundled along, but the others just called back and didn’t come back to the yard. After a bit of searching I found all three tucked up under a rhubarb bush, having a dust bath together. I decided to let them be. Twenty minutes later I caught them trying to dismantle a new pumpkin mound, and unceremoniously tossed them back in their pen. Naughty!

Seed Starting

It was raining on and off, so when it was raining I slipped undercover and planted up some seed trays for Summer veggies. This year I am not giving quite so much space to tomatoes, because I need the soil to recover from all the tomatoes I grew last season. It’s not good to grow tomatoes in the same spot, year-on-year. Unfortunately, if you don’t have a massive space, that reduces your tomato-growing opportunities. I will grow a few, but I just can’t grow as many. This year the plan is go hard on squashes and zucchini, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, corn and beans, as well as the necessary chillies and eggplant. Hopefully I can swap some of these with my brother, who always grows great tomatoes. So far I have planted:

Chilli Devil’s Tongue;
Tomato Sweet 100;
Tomato Moneymaker;
Tomato Jaune Flamme;
Onion Long Red Florence;
Corn Jubilee;
Cucumber Crystal Apple;
Cucumber Marketmore;
Melon Pocket; and
Watermelon Golden Midget.

The Devil’s Tongue are from seed I saved a couple of years ago, and that I am hoping are still viable. These were seriously great chillies. Lovely and hot, but still flavourful, and the most prolific plants I have ever grown. Fingers crossed at least some of the seeds grow.

I do not have the greatest of luck with cucumbers and melons, yet paradoxically have generally good fortune with pumpkins (last year notwithstanding). What works for one should technically work with the other, as they are related, however it doesn’t seem to be the case for me. Therefore I intend to give them yet another crack and try something different. Not entirely sure what that will be yet. If anyone has any suggestions to grow cracking cues and melons, I’m all ears.

These were planted up in trays with seed-raising mix. It’s a smidge cold still but I decided to give it a shot anyway – it’s the start of October after all, and if I wait too much longer it will be late November before I have plants large enough to plant out.

The rest of my garden space will be set aside for climbing beans and a little bit of space for some eggplant. I will wait until the end of October/early November to plant them. Once my major deadline is done in late October, I plan to have a week off and then it’s planting time. Can’t wait!

Weekend gardening jobs, 25 September 2021

Last night’s plate of Spring vegetables was brought to our table by our garden: asparagus, broccoli, peas, and baby carrots. So delicious.

Carrots are a pain to grow, tbh. They take forever, are finicky about the soil (not too heavy, not too rich, not too much competition, not too close together). They are the Goldilocks of vegetables. I always think it’s weird they cost $1 a bag at the supermarket, considering how long it takes me to grow a tiny bunch. They should cost $40 a bag.

But – and here’s the big but – freshly pulled carrots taste amazing.

When I am choosing garden space to give up to different plants, I often choose in favour of planting what I can’t buy at the supermarket. Think interesting heirloom tomatoes, freckled lettuces, stripy eggplants, interesting chillies, apples that you cannot ever buy because they don’t travel or store well.

The other consideration is flavour. Obviously, homegrown tomatoes are unbeatable in the flavour stakes. So are homegrown capsicums and cauliflowers – just awesome. And apricots – you cannot buy a good apricot. So I like to devote garden space to good flavour.

Carrots are just one of those vegetables that taste amazing when you pull them out of the ground, and lose flavour over time. This is because they are full of natural sugars. When they come out of the ground, they are at their peak sugar levels. Once out of the ground, those sugars turn to starch. This is why the carrots you buy at the supermarket don’t have that same sweet flavour. Instead they are starchy and slightly bitter. It’s no-one’s fault – it’s just a natural process of picking carrots and storing them for a while.

Growing carrots is not difficult exactly, but it does require patience and some knowhow. You need: sand, carrot seed, space, soil that is not too rich (not recently fertilised), and that has been carefully tilled to remove rocks or other debris.

Mix the tiny carrot seed in a container with an equal amount of sand. As the carrot seed is very fine and light, this helps with even distribution of the seed when planting.

Create shallow furrows where you want the carrots to grow. Remember, seeds should be planted at a depth twice the size of the seed, so the furrows should be shallow. Carefully pour the sandy seed mix along the furrows, trying your best to spread it evenly so the carrots will be distributed evenly. The more even, the less thinning you will have to do later.

Lightly cover the sand with soil. Water in.

As the carrots come up, start to gently thin them out so they are not too close together. Visit the carrots regularly and if any seem to close together, thin out. Remember if they are too close together, you will have carrots that are too skinny. They need room to grow. Start feeding them with half strength liquid seaweed and liquid fertiliser every couple of weeks, but never give them full strength, as they do not like a lot of fertiliser – too much and they can twist or fork.

Every month or so, give them a little thin. You can eat the thinnings if you like, but it’s a lot of washing for not a lot of reward so I generally give mine to the chooks.

Once they reach a good size you can start eating them. I like them raw, or lightly steamed with a tiny bit of butter or olive oil. Just scrub, don’t peel. The peel on homegrown carrots is so thin that it’s a waste of good fresh carrots to peel them.

Weekend gardening jobs, September 11 2021

September is the busiest month, to paraphrase T.S Eliot – for people in my game anyway. This means that I have to work most weekends until late October, just as the weather is warming up and the garden is singing to me. I have spent every day this week looking out of my office window at perfect Spring days, watching the irises in full bloom and hearing the rosellas fighting for supremacy on my roof with the currawongs (crazy birds). Spring is the absolute best season, in my view, and watching the first week of it go by from my desk was painful.

But, I also really enjoy having money to pay for food and my mortgage, so…

I decided that no matter the crippling deadlines, I would block out some time over this weekend to spend in the garden. 7am-12pm in fact. I woke up stupidly early for a Saturday, helped out of bed by my husband’s excellent coffee, waited for the grocery delivery to arrive (bang on time, thanks Coles!), then bolted out the door to visit the Big Green Shed.

The plan today was to prepare the soil for later Spring planting (think, tomatoes, chillies, beans, eggplant). The garden is still pretty full of greens, peas, some broccoli and cabbages, and loads of onions, so it was more a case of picking then feeding after. So I went to Bunnos to load up on Dynamic Lifter, seed raising mix, seaweed extract, and fish emulsion to feed the soil and the existing plants. I also bought some potting mix to refresh the balcony pots. We couldn’t resist buying a few chillies for the balcony to get started early, but I tried hard to avoid buying any plants this time around. It’s just a bit early yet.

Today I was very excited to discover the asparagus was ready to start picking. Asparagus is a plant for very patient gardeners.

You can’t pick it for two seasons after planting the crowns, no matter how tempted you are. To ensure healthy crops for up to twenty years after, you need to let the first two crops grow to fern and die down, to allow the crowns underground to build up energy. Year three is when that patience pays off: and I am finally in the third year now. I spotted the very first tip last week, and look how quickly four big spears grew in just a few days!

I also picked a big bowl of fresh garden veggies: cabbage, cauli, peas, onion, the first of the carrots planted in autumn, lettuce, parsley, and romanceso broccoli. Along with the asparagus, the onions, broccoli and herbs went straight into a delicious omelette for lunch when we were done (eggs from our chooks).

But before that fun, I had to do some necessary work: turning the compost, weeding, lightly trimming the lime tree, spreading Dynamic Lifter across the newly cleared soil, raking, giving the other plants a liquid feed, watering, and generally tidying up. I could have spent all day out there, but at midday I ~~turned into a pumpkin~~ pulled off the gum boots, came inside and cleaned up, made a bloody good veggie-filled omelette, and sat down at my desk.

Man, that garden looks good out there. Until next weekend, lovely plants.

Weekend gardening jobs, last week of Winter 2021

I hate the cold. Just putting it out there. I don’t just dislike the cold, I hate it. I cannot bear the feeling of shivering, the discomforting, twisty, nerve tingling feeling of being under-optimal body temperature. In Summer, I will happily sit in warm rooms and go outside to feel the baking heat on my skin. I don’t complain about heatwaves or hot weather. I look forward to it.

This can be a problem for others. When others turn on the air conditioning, I grab a jumper. I don’t bother with air conditioning, and they have to ask to turn it on. In the Winter, I rug up in uggs, padded vests, scarves, and woolly jumpers, even if the heat or the fireplace are on, and for those that feel the heat, it can be disconcertingly warm in our house. When I worked in an office, many people would complain that my office was too warm, and I had to keep a jacket in my office to respect the differing needs of my colleagues.

All this to say: thank goodness Winter is almost done. I cannot stand it for much longer.

I can tell for sure that Winter is almost done, because I was outside in the garden on the weekend, and saw the first asparagus spear poking its head up from the soil. This can mean only one thing: like the crocus spotted in Narnia, it means that Spring is on its way. The Winter is almost over, and Aslan is coming.

This weekend, as with most weekends lately, I had to work. However, I took two hours out to muck out the chook shed, give them fresh bedding, pull out some old brassica plants, dig over the broccoli bed, and pat the chickens. Then I wrapped myself back up in pure white furs, magicked up some turkish delight, and went back inside my ice castle. Soon.

Soon.

Weekend gardening jobs, August 1 2021

It’s been weeks since I have been out in the garden – due to incessant rain, wind, and lots of work taking up my weekends. But today was a rare sunny (not warm) day, so I took the opportunity to get out and into the dirt.

The garden has held up extremely well after weeks of very wet and windy weather. This is due in part to my husband finishing the retaining wall before the really heavy weather set in, and the Winter veggie garden being well established before the really cold weather. This meant that all the garden had to do was keep growing, while we hibernated inside, working and watching old episodes of Scrubs. Occasionally I ventured outside to check the progress of the cauliflowers, but aside from that I stayed inside and worked on a raft of projects that have been heading my way lately.

That doesn’t mean there is nothing to do out there. Today I set myself the task of pruning the mulberry tree, weeding, trimming a geranium bush, and feeding everything with liquid compost. Last week I did get outside for two hours to plant up two dwarf plum trees in Pie Corner, and I checked on them to make sure they were happy and settling in well, but aside from that, I just did everything on the list.

Look at these beauties. Romanceso cauliflower (or broccoli, whatever you want to call them) are my favourite Winter veggies to grow, but they take patience. I used to think caulis took a long time, but they are nothing compared to these green lovelies. The beauty of them alone makes them worth it, and the flavour is incredible. I’d estimate another four weeks before they are ready to pick. While I am waiting, I will give them a liquid compost feed every week to keep them sweet, and pick off the caterpillars. Normally I would leave the caterpillars alone, and on other plants I do, but not on the Romanescos. They can eat other things, but not my spiralled lovelies.

While we wait for them to be ready, we have cabbages and caulis to enjoy – unfortunately all the broccoli is finished 🙁

I am not a very confident pruner. I tend to be tentative with removing branches, and worried I will remove too much. As such, I think I probably remove too little. I pruned some of it today, but looking back at the job I did this morning, I think I need to go back and give it another go. The mulberry tree has not been performing well, and I think it is because I have not pruned it hard enough. The tree is five years old and has yet to produce more than a handful of tiny mulberries, so whatever we have been doing is not working. All the other fruit trees planted at the same time are fruiting well, but this freeloader is not producing the goods. Time to prune hard, or go home. Or in the case of this tree, go to the wood shed for next year’s fireplace, if I don’t see some berries this Summer.

There were not many weeds out there, considering the amount of rain we have had, and those that were there were easily removed by hand. I think this is due to consistent hand weeding over time. They don’t get the chance to set seed, so we don’t have many weeds. Occasional foraging by an escaped hen also helps. I picked a cauliflower, planted some more spring onions, and gave everything a quick feed of liquid fertiliser, then came inside for a wash.

Tomorrow is expected to bucket down, so at least I can look outside from my office and know that I have spent a solid four hours in the garden today, instead of feeling frustrated that the weekend was spent inside. And only four more weeks of Winter to go! I am just not a Winter person. Bring on Spring.

Weekend gardening jobs, 30 May 2021

One more day, and we are officially in Winter. You wouldn’t really know it, from the perfect, sunny morning I spent in the garden today.

Yesterday, I made lemon curd and lemon and lime marmalade using the fresh lemons and limes from my lime tree and my neighbour’s lemon tree. After eating pancakes with lemon curd and cream this morning, I had to get my muscles moving in the garden, or risk adding some more, er, Winter padding.

After we built our wall (yes, it’s finished!) we had a lot of displaced soil left over. This needs to be moved back to the garden bed in Pie Corner, but it’s a big job. I started it today, digging I-don’t-know-how-much dirt back up and into the bed. The area next to the boysenberries used to hold an old rainwater tank. We had it removed last year, but have not planted anything else there. The soil is quite poor. The job at the moment is to build it back up with organic matter, to get it ready for planting two dwarf plum trees later in the season. As part of this task, I sprinkled Dynamic Lifter over the soil, sifted it through for rocks and pebbles, and dug out two boysenberry suckers. Then I planted some red spring onion sets around the edges.

Planting Onion Sets

Onion ‘sets’ are the little clumps of onion seedlings you can either grow yourself or buy at a nursery. I have done both this season. I grew a tray of seedlings myself from seed (Barletta onions) and yesterday I bought a punnet of Red Spring Onion seedlings from the Big Green Shed, just because.

I love growing onions, for some reason. I cook with onions, but I don’t eat fresh onions. I just enjoy the look of them in the garden: different varieties look so interesting and pretty.

Most of the time, the onion seedlings you buy are growing in a clump. Try to buy the punnets with the most seedlings per clump, as these will give you the best value per punnet. I scored a bonanza yesterday: a punnet with six cells, but about twenty seedlings per cell. So for about $4.50 I got more than 100 individual plants.

Separate out all the plants. Don’t be too worried about damaging them – just make sure each plant has some roots.

Make a furrow where you intend to plant, then start laying each onion plant along the furrow where you want it to grow. Because these are spring onions, I planted them quite close together.

You can see from the photo above that this is not done super neatly. Don’t worry about standing them up or anything – lie them down on their side, it’s fine.

Cover them over with soil. Then water in with some seaweed extract and weak liquid fertiliser. As they become established, the onions will stand up on their own.

I had already dug over and raked over this soil a couple of times, but you can see it still looks pretty rough. As I continue to work on this area, the soil will improve. For now, I will grow a couple of rows of quick spring onions and by late June it will hopefully be ready for a couple of bare-rooted little plum trees.

I also planted out some kale and lettuce in the pots I refilled on the balcony last weekend, and fed all the brassicas and new seedlings with organic liquid fertiliser and seaweed extract. Good job too, because the brassicas are growing like crazy. This broccoli head has doubled in size since last weekend. All the brassicas are looking amazing – I’m so excited. I even have cabbages heading. That’s what they are supposed to do, I know, but cabbages can be a bit hit or miss in my experience. Broccoli is a more reliable vegetable than cabbage, any day.

The rest of the morning I spent doing the incredibly dull job of trimming herb bushes. Ugh. I hate doing it, but I am always happy I have done it in Springtime when they put their new flush of growth on and look gorgeous. I trimmed about a tenth of the plants in the front garden, and tried not to grimace as I did it. I love having a big garden, until I have to do stuff like this. I ended up digging out one thyme plant that was so woody that I thought it was never going to come good, along with a rhubarb plant that was really in the wrong place. I replaced it with a beautiful, old school, white dianthus plant I bought last week on a whim.

Then I came inside, made a mushroom omelette, and sat back down at my desk to work some more. I looked outside and realised I would rather be outside trimming herbs again. That’s what I get for grimacing while gardening.

Weekend Gardening jobs, May 22 and 23 2021

Boy, it’s been a while! I have been working so much lately that I have not been outside much, let alone out in my garden. I think the last time I really spent much time in the garden was Easter weekend. I have really, really missed it. I have seen it – from my office window. That is not the same thing at all.

This weekend I told my husband that no matter what happened, I was getting out into the garden. It also happened to be a very sunny and beautiful Autumn weekend, so that was lucky for me – but I would have gone out there in the hail, I was so desperate to dig in the dirt.

So much needed to be done after a month with no attention. I had to:

Repot plants on the balcony and remove Summer annual plants from the balcony garden;
Trim plants in the front and back garden (herbs, asparagus, etc);
Remove the last few pomegranates from the pomegranate tree;
Water and feed everything;
Weed the veggie patch;
Remove the dead Summer annual flowers from the backyard;
Plant out the last of the Autumn veggies before Winter sets in;
Finally plant the rest of the Sweet Peas before it’s too late;
Dig out the parsley plants that are setting seed.

That’s a lot!

Saturday

I started with the balcony garden, which was looking very sad. The eggplant and tomatoes were well and truly done, but had been sitting out there ready to move in to the compost for at least a month now. I pulled them out of their pots and removed half of the potting mix. I topped up each pot with fresh potting mix and soil wetter granules. Some of the pots I re-potted with a Dragon Fruit plant and climbing monstera, but the remainder I have left empty for now. I fed everything with liquid fertiliser. The full pots can stay out there over Winter, regularly watered, and I will plant them back up in the Springtime.

All the spent plants and old soil went into the green bin, because my compost bins are almost full.

I watered all the indoor plants and moved some around to make sure they get the best light.

Then I started on the weeding. Although I mulch well, the weeds still come up, so I started in the garlic patch and cleared the little weeds that had started to make their presence felt, along with the rogue potatoes from last year’s crappy potato plantings. I also noticed that the lime tree, which has a bad case of Citrus Leaf Miner, needed another spray of Pest Oil.

Lime leaves affected by Citrus Leaf Miner

Citrus Leaf Miner is a very annoying little critter that sucks all the goodness out of the leaves of citrus plants and weakens the tree. They are too small to see, but you can see the damage to the leaves: they look puckered and twisted, and if you look closely you can see the telltale tracks on the leaves. Of course because I have been out of the garden for so many weeks, I did not notice they had moved in until a couple of weeks ago when I was tossing something in the compost bin. I was cranky as, and gave the tree a spray of Eco Pest Oil, which is a natural pest oil spray. Pest Oil smothers the Citrus Leaf Miners and is organic. It doesn’t damage the tree, just coats the leaves so the little monsters cannot breathe. One coating is not enough to knock them off though, so today I needed to spray again.

The lime tree has been an ongoing hassle. When we first planted it, we grew it in a pot in our patio. It caught a shocking case of wooly scale, helped by farming ants. It took forever for us to get on top of it (again with Pest Oil). After finally clearing that, it didn’t really enjoy being in a pot or under the patio, and kept dropping its fruit. We planted in the garden, and this year we had our first crop of about twelve large juicy limes. Then the Citrus Leaf Miners moved in. We love limes (we eat a lot of Mexican food) so I am determined that this tree will survive.

Sunday

Today my first important job was to cut back the asparagus.

Asparagus should be allowed to set its fern at the end of the season, as this enables the plant to build its energy for next year’s spears. When the fern turns yellow in Autumn, it’s time to cut it back down. Cut it right back down to the ground. It looks horrible and messy while it is getting to this stage, but if you want asparagus, that’s the deal. The other part of the asparagus deal is that you can’t eat the spears for the first two years: you just have to let them run to fern. You also have to leave a couple of spears to run to fern each year. This will be my third season of asparagus this Spring, so we are finally able to eat the spears, and I will be very excited about it, let me tell you.

Note: If your asparagus fern grows little berries, it is a male plant and you won’t get as many spears or as delicious spears. Best to dig it up as soon as you can and try again. If you leave it for another year or so, you might not be able to dig it up as the root system will be very strong. That’s the other deal with asparagus: you plant it, you keep it.

I also cut back the Vietnamese mint, that had grown like crazy under the lime tree, but was now woody and horrible. Poor thing likes a lot of water and this season has been very dry. I managed to save a bit and it should come back ok.

I dug out all of last season’s dead and dying annual dahlias, some parsley that was running to seed (I have tons of it everywhere so I don’t worry about saving seed anymore), and then I fed the whole patch and the lime tree with a mix of pelletised chicken manure and blood and bone.

Then I had fun planting onion sets, pak choy, violas, more broccoli, lettuce seeds, snow peas, coriander, and a couple of hopeful packets of Sweet Peas. The veggie patch is really full now: I couldn’t cram anything else in there without pulling something else out.

I am saving space in Pie Corner for two dwarf plum trees, but it is too early for them to go in yet. I have another month at least: hopefully it will not be that long before I get out there again!

Gardening jobs, Easter Weekend 2021

I run my own business, and things are flat out right now, so I do not have the time to spend four days outside in the glorious Autumn weather, more’s the pity.

I gave myself one full day off, and the rest was to be spent looking outside at my garden from my study window.

Good Friday: working.

Easter Saturday: Day off at the Meadows Easter Fair, a family tradition of many years.

Easter Sunday: working.

Easter Monday: working.

Easter Saturday

The Meadows Easter Fair is held in the little town of Meadows, about twenty minutes from our place. We trek along every year with close friends. We have the stalls we visit each year, and the items we always look out for. It is a traditional country fair, complete with hot donuts, sausage sizzle, homemade jams and pickles, and marshmallow rabbits. Our kids love it, even at the ages of 16 and 12.

There are also a lot of plants for sale. This year there were fewer plants of the kind that I was looking for, but I did manage to buy some Dutch Iris and Daffodil bulbs to plant in the front yard. The Daffodil bulbs were a plain yellow called Greg’s Favourite, which I bought mostly because I was tickled by the name. The Dutch Iris were a lovely ochre coloured variety called Bronze Beauty, which I have not seen in any of the catalogues (and you better believe I’ve been reading the catalogues).

Easter Sunday

Welllllll…I’m only human. Before I sat down to work, I gave myself a little bit of time in the garden. I have many indoor houseplants, and several of them needed dividing and repotting. I spent about an hour doing this, as well as taking cuttings from the overgrown Swiss Cheese Plant that has gone crazy in my study. I repotted the Fiddle Leaf Fig and a Hoya, and divided a Pothos Snow Queen.

I also repotted the silverbeet seedlings I have been growing from seed, and then watered all the repotted and divided plants with seaweed extract.

Then I checked all the brassica seedlings for caterpillars. I couldn’t find any, although I can tell that something has been having a little munch. I also noticed white fly around the place. The longer warm period has kept them hanging around. Generally I don’t spray, even with organic sprays because they can also kill beneficial insects, but if the white fly does get worse I might have to.

I cultivated around the brassicas to remove some opportunistic weeds (and some tomato seedlings that have popped up from the compost).

I quickly threw around some poppy and hollyhock seeds from my stash of seeds.

Then I waved goodbye to my lovely garden, and headed back inside to face my computer screen.

Next weekend, if I have time, I will plant out peas, sweet peas, garlic, and the bulbs I bought at the Easter Fair. Until then, it is time to work.

Weekend gardening jobs, 20/21 March 2021

Autumn is a busier time in the garden than Spring. In Spring, there is always another warm day to catch up on tasks if you miss out on a day in the garden due to work or family commitments. In Autumn, you are always playing catch up, because there are only so many warm days until Winter comes along. Those lovely mild days are critical for planting seeds and seedlings while the soil temperature is still warm enough for germination and for the seedlings to get a good headstart. There are lots of end-of-Summer jobs to finish, such as cleaning up old plants, preparing the soil for new plants, trimming and pruning, LOTS of weeding, and planting. I have been doing all of these things this weekend, and I am still not done.

Saturday

On Saturday, my husband and I visited an Open Garden. For those who do not know about the Open Garden Scheme, it is a program in Australia (maybe in other parts of the world too) wherein people with beautiful gardens open them up to visitors on a weekend. Each State has its own Open Garden Scheme.

This was the first time we had visited an Open Garden. Not being ageist, but we were easily the youngest attendees by a good decade. We had a lovely time. It was fun to see a different garden, established and maintained by people with a lot more space (and let’s be honest, a lot more cash) than us. Their garden was on a hillside in a winery in McLaren Vale, one of the premier wine growing regions in South Australia. It was not the kind of garden I would grow (too few veggies and fruit trees, too many ornamentals), but it was beautiful, and a very relaxing way to spend a sunny Saturday morning. Plus, the CWA were there with tea and scones. We sat on a verandah overlooking a hillside sipping tea, and felt like proper grownups.

We finished the morning at my favourite nursery in McLaren Vale. I love this place – it has the most beautiful pots and gardening paraphernalia, as well as stunning houseplants. I controlled myself and just bought seedlings this time around.

Sunday

I got up early and got into the garden as soon as I could. My plan was to plant out all the seedlings I have bought over the past two weekends while the weather is still lovely and warm, and to keep preparing the soil for Autumn vegetables.

I am still removing Summer vegetables and digging over the soil ready for new plantings. For each area, I have spread Dynamic Lifter and Blood and Bone to help replenish the soil, and compost or well-rotted chicken manure (depending what I have at the time). This time I had well-rotted chicken manure. I turned the compost bins lightly with a garden fork and added more material to them (old potting mix from tomato plants and kitchen scraps).

Weeds are starting to make their presence felt, so with my trust Ho-Mi, I spent some time grubbing out creeping oxalis from the flower beds in front of the retaining wall. Due to regular weeding and letting the chooks out for a run, the weeds are pretty well controlled, but the oxalis is a continuing problem. As I do not spray anything, it is something that just has to be continually managed.

After watering the newly dug and raked soil well, I planted another of the new passionfruit vines in against the back fence, and planted out a bunch of flower seedlings.

This season, I am planting stocks, violas, and pansies for winter colour, and I will also plant more Spring flowering bulbs (daffodils, iris, ranunculus, etc) for later colour. In a couple of weeks I will plant my favourite flower, sweet peas.

Dahlia in the veggie patch being visited by a bee

I always plant flowers in amongst the vegetable patch, to attract pollinating insects. This Summer, I planted dianthus, sunflowers, petunias, and dahlias. While the dahlias took quite a while to flower, they are now putting on a stunning display, and the bees are going crazy for them. I also always have alyssum, nasturtium, and calendula growing in the garden. These self-seed all over the place, acting as a ground cover and attracting bees and hoverflies to the garden.

Finally, all the seedlings, including the brassicas planted last week, were fed with a weak solution of liquid seaweed and fish emulsion to keep them growing nice and quickly in this warm weather. Feeding is critical for plants anytime, but especially when they are establishing, and especially for crops like brassicas and leafy greens. When they are young, a half-strength solution of liquid fertiliser is best. When they are larger, you can upgrade to full strength. Try to feed them earlier in the day and on cooler days to prevent burning the leaves. A weekly feed is best when establishing, but to be honest I am more likely to manage it fortnightly. Once the plants are well established, a fortnightly full-strength feed is fine. For larger plants, such as the passionfruit I have just planted, a fortnightly full-strength is preferred.

If I am to be completely honest, keeping up with feeding all of my plants is challenging. I am much more diligent with the fruit tree watering and feeding than I am say, with the roses and ornamentals, which I tend to leave more to their own devices. I would have much better roses if I was really religious about nutrition and watering. But as a part-time gardener, I only have so much time, so the plants I am most passionate about are those that receive most of my time and attention.

While I was watering, I noticed a couple of white cabbage moths fluttering around the cabbages and cauliflowers, and made a mental note to start checking the seedlings for those horrible green grubs in the next day or so.

After almost the whole weekend in the garden or garden adjacent, I still have so much left to do before the warm weather runs out – and not enough time to do it. Hopefully, next weekend will be warm and I can make it out there for a few hours.

Weekend gardening jobs, Sunday 14 March 2021

This weekend we spent a day in the city, checking out the Adelaide Fringe activities and the South Australian Art Gallery. As is to be expected, I was drawn to all things garden-related – I spied this very cool pumpkin sculpture by Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama. I’m into it. But then, I would be. Pumpkins are generally very beautiful and sculptural plants, in my opinion.

After a day of being extremely cultural and artsy, we spent a goodly chunk of the next day in the garden. Sadly, we farewelled our passionfruit vine, which had stopped fruiting. Passionfruit are a productive but short-lived plant, lasting up to five years. Ours really only had one really great Summer, and then started to reduce in productivity. This season, we had five passionfruit. They still tasted good, but I’m not feeding and watering what is basically a small tree for five fruits.

I’m a ruthless gardener.

While my husband cut it down, I went to the Big Green Shed and bought four new passionfruit vines. Passionfruit make up for being short-lived by being cheap as. For less than $25 I got four new plants. One is going back where the old vine was, and the other three are going against the back fence. In addition to two black passionfruit, I bought Red Panama and Gold Panama varieties. I bought non-grafted varieties. Grafted passionfruit can lead to trouble when the rootstock take over, so non-grafted are preferred.

Passionfruit are heavy feeders and fast growers. My husband and I are building new trellises to espalier our apple trees, so when we do that we will also build trellises for these new passionfruit. I fed the new vines with Dynamic Lifter (pelletised organic chicken manure), and watered in well. Keeping up the fertiliser will be important to healthy growth and a strong crop in Summer.

I also bought cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage seedlings. I am growing these from seed, but I wanted to get a headstart on the Autumn veggie patch while the soil is still warm. After removing the last couple of tomato vines from this part of the garden, I spread Dynamic Lifter, and dug it through. Then I planted out the brassica seedlings (along with two passionfruit vines against the fence), and watered in well. I planted more cabbages than anything else, because I love to make sauerkraut, and because I prefer to grow Romanesco than regular broccoli. As I am growing the Romanesco from seed, these will be planted in a few weeks when the seedlings are ready.

I really need to spend some quality time in the front garden, which needs some trimming and feeding. Maybe next weekend!